by Ann Bauer
“You’re one to talk,” Jack hissed.
I was worn through, so his whipsaw snuck up and took me by surprise. But I breathed evenly and gathered myself. For as many years as I could remember, I’d been both the cautionary story in my family and the model of redemption that was held out. I’d fallen further than anyone, but then I’d repented and ascended to a sacred state. But Jack had never quite bought it.
He was the middle McKenna boy, sweeter and softer than we other two were by far. I was the bright, confident oldest; Sean was the spoiled baby, my mother’s last, who invariably got his way. As a child Jack had been the jester, always seeking to entertain. He’d shared his candy and gum and later his cigarettes. When we’d grown up enough to see that the kid next door had problems, Jack had been the only one who stuck by him.
Sure, he’d joined in and made fun of Aidan behind his back. Back then, in our neighborhood, we’d used the word “retard” to describe so many people it wasn’t sufficient for Aidan, who actually did have something missing in his head. Jack could do a dead-ringer impression of Aidan’s lurching walk, of his hollow chest bent oddly over his stomach, mouth hanging open, hair in his eyes. I’m pretty sure it had been Jack who coined the phrase “Tar Boy,” which was short for “retard” and was what we called Aidan among the boys on the block.
But whenever Aidan had been around, Jack had gone out of his way to pay attention. He’d listen intently while Aidan stuttered through his complicated yet empty thoughts. If someone jeered at Aidan in his presence, Jack would slip beside him like a faithful dog. He wouldn’t say anything; my middle brother had no appetite for confrontation. In fact, it scared him—I’d since realized—more than haunted old houses or our father’s occasional rage. Jack would simply be there next to Aidan and say soft, soothing, funny things after the bully left.
As a child, and then a teenager, Jack had never guessed that the person he should have been protecting Aidan from was me. I hadn’t been the kind to be cruel right to Aidan’s face, and that was how I fooled everyone. But I had been living right in his house, occupying the bedroom next door to the one Jack had to share with Sean. And all that time, it had been me pushing Tar Boy into a dark cave he could never crawl out of.
I’d done all this, and then had put on a collar and become a priest, which trumped everything. Jack had watched—infuriated, I could tell—while my mother and aunts and eventually the whole neighborhood forgave me. He’d had to show respect once I was ordained, but he’d done so grudgingly. And I had to imagine he’d been thrilled when I’d left the Church, dismantling that fairytale hero I was supposed to have become.
At least now it was clear to me that Jack hadn’t forgotten any of our past. It was going to be like this, was it? Part of me was furious. The other part insisted that I’d worn that collar for fifteen years just to avoid the censure I deserved. I owed my brother patience with his disdain, and help with whatever made him pick up the phone at one in the morning.
“Let’s not get riled up,” I said, feeling a certain relief that we could be our real selves now, just two broken old Southie boys. “You called me, Jackie. So whaddya want?”
“Yeah, fuck, I’m sorry, Father,” he said again. “It’s just, I’m in a world of shit here. Inga’s talking about taking the girls back to Stamford. She doesn’t understand.”
“Was it a girl, Jackie?” With my brother, I took on a snake charmer’s tone. I don’t know why, but it worked. “Did Inga catch you?”
“A … what? Oh, for Christ’s sake, no!”
“No she didn’t catch you, or no you didn’t …?”
“No. There was no girl. Ever.” Jack sounded sullen, the way he had when Ma caught him holding a clump of Missy Halpern’s hair. “I wouldn’t do that, Gabe.” And it was true—he wouldn’t. My brother might wink and pay off some goons with a trunk full of black market beef. But he wouldn’t cheat. Twisted as it may have been, Jackie had his own inviolable code.
“So … what?” I prodded. I was remembering now. With people from the old neighborhood—especially the ones I was related to—the best strategy was to be direct. “What did you call me for?”
Jack sighed heavily, and I imagined him on the other end putting his dark boyish face in one hand. “I owe my staff, too. About four weeks back wages. No, more like five. Plus tips. I’ve been holding what they made on credit cards. I thought if I used it to pay off my fish guys I could make it up later. But now we’re closing, and the money’s gone.”
“Gone? All your money is gone?”
“Well …” He was scratching his face; I could hear the rasp of his thick whiskers. It was one trait Jack, Sean, and I shared. “Here’s the thing.”
I waited. The other trait we brothers had in common was saying “Here’s the thing” before delivering an unwelcome truth.
“I have this great accountant who set up Black Irish as an LLC and an S-Corp. So technically it’s a completely separate legal entity.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning I shared the profits with my partner but we have limited liability, personally, in a case like this.”
“And your partner is …?” I asked, though I knew exactly what Jack would say.
“Inga,” I mouthed along with him.
The cop show was over, its credits rolling, the brunette gone for another night. I switched off the TV and paced for a few minutes, mostly just for something to do. “So the accountant says basically, we’re covered.” He was speaking slowly, starting and stopping. “The way he’s got things structured, our assets are protected. We could just walk away.”
“Okay, well I’m sorry about the restaurant, Jack. But it’s getting late.” I was about to pass my moment of tiredness. If I stayed up much longer, I’d be awake and alone most of the night. “I really need to get to …”
“Wait. It’s not just that,” he cut in. “There’s also a lawsuit. A couple of the employees, including one who’s got some, ah, mental problems. I hired him as a busboy. Swear, Gabe, I thought I was doing the kid a favor. He reminded me of ….” Jack swallowed, and I waited. This was exactly what I’d been afraid of: the topic that left me mute and defenseless. I’d have to let my brother talk about Aidan and everything that happened twenty years ago if that’s what he needed. So I was deeply relieved when he went on about the boy of today. “He lives on next to nothing, this kid, rents a room somewhere. The lawyer is going after me for back wages and maybe damages, saying my ‘wrongdoing is causing harm’ because the guy can’t buy his meds.”
“Pay them.” I was firm. This was so simple! Not like Chase and his long-dead Laura who could never be brought back. My brother knew what was right, and it was within his power to do it. “Just swallow this. Write a check, cover the money you owe these people.” I was ready to hang up.
“I know, Father, I know.” Jack was tearful now, like he was back in the confessional on his knees, our mother waiting outside to quiz him about what he’d said. “That’s what I said. We pay it out, start over, cut our expenses to the bone. But Inga said no. She said if I do that …” He paused, inhaled, exhaled. “She’ll take the girls and leave.”
“That’s ridiculous! She’s just upset, Jackie. You’ve been married for thirteen years. She’s not going to let, what, ten, fifteen thousand dollars? come between you. That’s not how marriage works.” Like I would know.
“Yeah, you don’t get how Inga works.”
I acknowledged, silently and thankfully, that this was true.
“It’s become this big test. I don’t even think it’s about the money anymore. It’s about whether I love my children more than my reputation. Or something like that.”
Poor Jack sounded crushed, and I wanted to take him out and buy him some ice cream the way I had after the incident with Missy, an evil older girl who’d kicked him in the crotch just to see what would happen. She’d heard it could render a boy unconscious, so she found a test case. She’d lured Jack in with the promise to kiss him—which he was curious
about—so he’d been close enough to grab her hair when it happened. I’d told him over root beer floats that he’d done the right thing.
“What is it Inga wants?” I was gentle. There were similarities between Missy and Inga in my mind—Jack’s taste in women had always mystified me—but we were talking about his wife. I willed myself to be kind. Or at least, to pretend. “Is there any way you can compromise on this?”
“I don’t think so. She says it’s my responsibility: I’m the one who tried to hold on and keep the restaurant open. I’m the one who was shifting money around, acting crazy. Why should our girls have to give up horseback riding camp because I’m an idiot? They’re just kids. None of this is their fault. And legally we’re in the clear.”
I stopped to consider. Morality often had shades of gray, this was true. But generally actions were more clear-cut. Apologize, repent, repay. It was rare that I got stymied as I was offering advice. But Inga’s point, self-serving though it may have been, was valid. Jack would be stealing from one faction to pay another no matter what he did.
“Well, Jackie …” I sat down again and spoke as if my brother were there, right across from me. “What do you think you should do?” The clock showed 1:23. It was unlikely that I would be sleeping tonight.
“I think I should do both, provide for my family and pay these people I owe.”
I sighed. “Yes, but that’s impossible, right?”
“Unless I start selling drugs.” I laughed first and he joined in, as if he’d been waiting to see if I got the joke.
“Now’s not the time to be a wise guy.” I rubbed my own whiskery face and we made a scratching sound in stereo. “Jack?” I said after a couple minutes. “This kid, the one with mental problems, how much do you owe him?”
“Huh? Peanuts.” Jack was drinking something now. I hoped it was water but doubted it was. “He was a busboy so he made minimum wage and his cut of the tips came to twenty bucks a night. Maybe forty on weekends.”
“Total of what? A thousand dollars? Maybe fifteen hundred.”
“Sure,” Jack slurred, “about that.” He was mellower now. Whatever he had in his hand was taking effect.
“Anyone else you’re particularly worried about? Single mom? Any of your employees supporting a Haitian orphan or taking care of a dying parent?”
Jack snorted. “You kidding? Most of them were kids who graduated from BU and didn’t want to leave town. I really think they’ve been stealing steaks and liquor for their parties for years—that’s what kept them around.” He paused, breathing like a bear. “Nope,” he said after a minute. “No one I can think of who wasn’t robbing me blind.”
“Okay, then, what are you doing keeping me up? Pay the kid. Go to him, give him cash. You can put together a thousand dollars without Inga finding out, I know you can.”
“That’s your advice? Really, Father?” This time, he hit the last word with a little bit of sarcasm. “I should pay off the only likable person who’s suing me, shaft the others, and lie to my wife?”
Silently, I reviewed the facts. Yes, that was my advice. “Let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith,” I recited in my best priestly voice. “You’re following scripture, more or less.”
“Hmm.” He swallowed heavily. “You’re brilliant.”
“Don’t forget it,” I said. And call me some time when you’re not in trouble, I wanted to say. “But, Jackie, hey!”
“Yeah?”
“You’re not going to solve this by drinking. Or whatever it is you’re doing.”
He laughed darkly. “Yeah, true. But it’s our tradition, right?”
“And, Jack,” I said, intent upon following up. Jack had always been too quick to take the easy way out, never thinking about the consequences—or ignoring them. It’s how we all were at heart. “Jack, listen to me. You’ve got a real problem in your marriage if your wife is blackmailing you. That’s not how things are supposed to work.”
“You think I don’t fuckin’ know that?” He’d tipped over into real drunkenness in the past few seconds. Nothing I said from now on would make any difference.
“Sometimes …” he breathed into the phone. “Sometimes I think you were actually the lucky one, Gabe.” Then there was a click and my brother was gone.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Dear Isaac—
I’m not writing as your friend, I’m writing as your former boss. I really need you back in Chicago, and I hope you’ll consider it. I’m sure we can figure out an arrangement so you can fly back and forth to see your Texan.
Quick background: We didn’t meet our numbers last year, and the venture capital who bought Mason & Zeus in ‘08 expecting to turn around and sell are pissed. These guys own mostly power companies and stockyards and other land-raping businesses. How they got involved with M&Z is a story for another day. (Needless to say, it involved someone sleeping with my predecessor.) But at our annual meeting last month, they said if we don’t perform this year they’re going to move us to … Are you ready for this, Isaac? Gary! As in Indiana. I am not joking. These guys know less than shit about advertising. And they honestly think that it’s no big deal if we move into some moldy, old steel factory across the border where they can get a huge tax incentive. Never mind that everyone would quit.
So if they were trying to motivate me, they did. And I had what I will tell you, candidly, was probably the most brilliant idea of my life. Remember I told you about that day I walked into a bookstore and started crying? (Yes, really embarrassing.) It turns out the guy I was talking to, the clerk, is an ex-priest. And he has this effect on people—which I believe, because the minute I started talking to him it was like something came over me, this compulsion to tell the whole story about Cassidy and figure out how to make it right. So that’s when I had this brainstorm. He forgave me for what I did, and he made me FEEL BETTER, and isn’t that what every single person on the planet is looking for every minute of every day?
That’s how we sell vodka, right? And tummy-flattening jeans. And Jamaican vacations and even insurance or mutual funds (“you’ll sleep at night”). We go to massage therapists and movies and nail salons where tiny Korean women pumice our feet. Why? Because it makes us feel good. Best incentive in the world to buy something, right? So why not take what this guy has—his name is Gabe McKenna, by the way—and monetize it? I mean, people are pouring out their stories left and right; I’m a case in point. He got nothing out of the deal except the martinis I bought him afterward. And that wasn’t even to pay him for absolving me. It was because I already had this idea kind of forming in the back of my mind (and also I liked him and he seemed a little sad).
But Gabe isn’t quite on board yet. He doesn’t understand that we have a concept for an entirely new kind of business. That’s what’s so incredible about this! It isn’t trying to get a piece of the auto industry or fast food. It’s creating something brand-new FROM THE GROUND UP and then being the person (or people) who spins it off. I see books, I see a television series, I see a franchise that goes cross-platform in every conceivable direction. Not to mention we find ex-priests or rabbis or what have you in every major market of the U.S. and set them up to do exactly what Gabe McKenna is doing here in Chicago. They listen to people’s wrongs or sins or whatever you want to call them. They grant forgiveness. They collect, oh, say, $1,000 on average (I’m thinking a sliding scale). It’s huge. So huge that I was absolutely sure someone else must have done it already, but our Google searches say no, it’s a concept that’s never been tried.
Now I can hear you saying, “Madeline, you’re in advertising. That means you provide creative for existing businesses—not that you start totally new companies so you can launch their campaigns.” And six months ago, or even six weeks ago, I would have agreed with you. But desperate times, Isaac … And I’d say being the barely qualified candidate who took over a dying agency from a jailed CEO puts me in the
desperate camp.
Fact is, the economy seems to be picking up for everyone but us and growing our current accounts just isn’t working. (Oh, did I tell you, we lost Northern Bath tissue? That was a blow.) So I’m going for a Hail Mary pass here (ha! Get it?) and I’ve already got an attorney drawing up papers that say whatever McKenna makes, we get 50%.
So why do I need you? Because, sweetheart, I’ve got a fuckton of PR issues brewing here. I mean, let’s start with the obvious: the Catholic Church might have a problem with this whole thing. There’s reputation, first, and how they react to our using the credentials of ex-priests to give it authenticity. But also, we’ll be taking money right out of their hands!
Plus, there’s this: I was so excited about this idea I threw a team together really fast. And I wasn’t really thinking. I’ve got Abel on copy and Scott is designing, so the creative is nailed down. But I’ve got a very young, new guy on media, Ted Romans. He’s local, African-American, grew up Baptist. (How do I know this? Because I have our receptionist, Candy, chatting people up over the Keurig machine, gathering highly illegal, private intel, for which I’ve promised her a big, fat raise.) Ted’s a bit of a straight arrow, though. I’m not sure he’s going to be hungry enough for this.
Then there’s Joy, our strategist. She’s really smart and about 25 (all the newbies are 25, it makes me feel like the maiden aunt); she wears these little zippered skirts and FM heels, great body. But I noticed the other day that she also wears a cross and—are you ready for this?—Joy is (eeewww) sleeping with Scott! Which is not only disgusting it’s dangerous. (Yes, by the way, Scott is still married. That there are two women on Earth willing to get naked with him blows my mind.)
So obviously, the team could use some leadership. And then, there’s this: Remember I said we did a Google search when I first came up with this idea? It was mostly around forgiveness as a business model and ex-priests. But lo and behold, look what came up? The article is attached and it’s … well, it’s a little thorny from a public image point of view. Once you read it you’ll see that I really need you to come here and run some interference. You’re a consultant, right? So come up here and consult. I can squeeze some money out of the budget somewhere, and I can fly you back and forth every, say, two weeks. I don’t know where in Chicago I’ll find a hotel that meets your extremely refined taste, but I’ll do my best.
